


Yours, Mine, Ours

by Ellis_Hendricks



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Complete unapologetic fluff, Established Sherlock Holmes/Molly Hooper, F/M, best laid plans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-16
Updated: 2019-06-16
Packaged: 2020-05-13 03:35:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19242997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ellis_Hendricks/pseuds/Ellis_Hendricks
Summary: A successful case results in an unusual acquisition for Sherlock, one that he is very keen to share with Molly - but will she share his enthusiasm?





	Yours, Mine, Ours

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks, as always, to geekmama, for giving this fic the once-over and making it ship-shape!

When Sherlock emerged back out onto the busy street, the city of London had never looked better. The sky was blue, the bright spring sun was reflecting off the windows of the surrounding Georgian buildings, and even the teeming hordes of gawping tourists seemed slightly less cretinous than normal. It was, all things considered, a rather excellent day.

The fact that he had closed a case the previous night could almost be considered incidental if it wasn’t for what that achievement had led to. Sherlock had become inured to the tedious process of accepting ‘gifts’ from grateful clients, having received enough pointless tie-pins and cufflinks to start his own boutique, but now, for the very first time, he had been presented with something that he actually wanted. Not just wanted, but - he had to admit – was utterly delighted with. It had been hard to maintain a dignified exterior when the offer was being made, difficult to gracefully accept, when the Mind Palace version of himself was dancing an undeniably excited jig.

Of course, the circumstances could have been better, Sherlock realised; his gain was another man’s loss. It had all happened very quickly, too. Impressed by the extent of Craig’s hacking abilities, the US Government had made him a job offer almost overnight, meaning that while he was hastily packing his bags for Washington, DC, someone else was being made homeless - that someone being his very fine, black and tan bloodhound, Toby.

While Sherlock had always had a fondness for canines, particularly the clever ones - and particularly Toby - he had never seriously considered taking on the ownership of a dog. His life had always been too chaotic, too unpredictable; without warning, he could suddenly be gone from home for days at a time, and he was entirely terrible at maintaining any kind of routine. At least when he had acquired John, he could be fairly sure that his blogger was capable of managing his own meals and exercise without Sherlock’s intervention (and was, by and large, house-trained).

But things were different now. Very different. Because as soon as the initial thrill of the offer had sunk in, Sherlock’s immediate thought - as in so many situations these days - was of Molly. He was already picturing himself introducing this exceptional new companion to the woman with whom he now shared so many facets of his life. The woman he could now freely admit that he loved, and who loved him in return - a circumstance so miraculous it sometimes still took his breath away to think about.

His mind was already conjuring up visions of the future **:** evenings in front of the fire at Baker Street with Toby at their feet, the three of them taking long summer strolls in Regents Park.

He really couldn’t wait a moment longer; he reached into his coat for his phone.

“Sit, Toby!” Sherlock instructed, once they were out of the way of the crowds.

Toby stared up at him with a doleful look, although it was admittedly quite difficult to tell the difference, with a bloodhound, between doleful and most other expressions. However he was feeling at that moment, though, Toby was very definitely not sitting.

“Toby, sit!” Sherlock repeated.

This time, the dog cocked his head before starting to amble off in the opposite direction. Okay, there was clearly a little work to do in establishing this new dog/master relationship, but in fairness to Toby, this was very sudden for both of them. After a couple more attempts, Sherlock reached into his pocket for the packet of dog treats Craig had given him, and found himself able to physically push Toby into a sitting position while the dog was adequately distracted by his snack.

Molly answered her phone after a couple of rings.

“Hi, Sherlock,” she said. He could hear the smile in her voice.

“Are you at home?” he replied. He was fairly certain she was, not only because he’d been committing her shift patterns to memory for several years now, but because these days he was familiar with the subtle noises of her flat.

“Mm-hm,” she confirmed. “Where are you?”

“Just dealing with the aftermath of a case,” he replied, glancing down at Toby, who was now lying almost prostrate on the ground as he demolished the treat he most certainly had not earned. “Some of it slightly unexpected, but, ah, in a good way. Can I come over?”

Over the past year, their lives had evolved to the point that when he wasn’t actively working a case, Sherlock would spend most nights at Molly’s flat, or she would stay over at Baker Street.  But right now, they hadn’t seen each other since early the previous day, when Sherlock had made a fleeting visit to the path lab, and this was a situation - surprise dog aside - that he was keen to remedy as soon as possible. He was picturing Molly in her soft jeans and an oversized jumper, perhaps with her hair in a slightly (adorably) messy bun, which she seemed to favour when at home at the weekend. Leaning on the kitchen counter, maybe, or sitting on her side of the sofa, feet pulled up underneath her.

“Yeah, of course!” Molly told him. “I was hoping you would, actually. We didn’t, um, have much time together yesterday.”

This was true. Sherlock had been hoping for some privacy at the lab, if only for a few minutes, but had been thwarted by Molly's current PhD student, who was idly leaning on the bench, noisily ploughing through a bag of tortilla chips. Sherlock had considered just telling the student to bugger off, but suspected it would likely lead to a telling-off from Molly and make her less inclined to kiss him.

"We'll be there soon," Sherlock told her. "That is, _I_ will. _I'll_ be there soon."

So much for the element of surprise. Sometimes he felt as though falling in love had cost him at least ten percent of his mental acuity - but on balance, he conceded, the payoff was more than worth it.

As it turned out, his promise of being there soon was a little harder to fulfil than Sherlock expected. The first cab driver whose taxi he hailed took one look at Sherlock's hundred-pound, slobbering companion and promptly hit the accelerator. The bus was out of the question simply by virtue of being the bus, and when he attempted to take the Tube, Sherlock was informed by the wryly amused attendant at the ticket barriers that for the sake of other passengers, he would have to be prepared to _carry_ Toby. Clearly, that was an indignity too far (for both man and dog), so in the end - fearing that they were facing a very long journey on foot - Sherlock managed to reach an agreement with another cabbie, prepared to take the pair of them in exchange for an extra twenty quid ‘insurance money’, plus a mildly humiliating selfie.

When they finally arrived at the entrance to Molly’s flat, Sherlock managed to negotiate with Toby (translation: bribe with further dog-treat) until the dog sat just out of sight, to the right of the front door. He had initially tied the end of Toby’s leash to the drainpipe, but was forced to rethink this when Toby’s olfactory senses caught onto something clearly delicious or intriguing, and the drainpipe started to creak and pull away from the wall.

Keeping the leash in his hand wasn’t ideal, but when Molly opened the door, it seemed to escape her notice anyway. And at the sight of Molly, Sherlock almost forgot about it, too - she seemed to have that effect on him (and he suspected she always would, whether they’d been together twelve months or twelve years). His prediction on her attire had been close - and he’d been right on the hair, a ballpoint pen protruding from her loose bun - but it wouldn’t matter what she was wearing; it was how Molly looked at him whenever they’d been apart, even for a few hours, the smile and affection that Sherlock still could scarcely believe was for him.

“Hi,” Molly smiled. Sherlock automatically took a step forward to receive the kiss that was proffered, Molly remaining on the doorstep to help reduce the height difference. “Were there transport problems again?”

“In a sense,” Sherlock replied. He felt a slight jerk at his wrist; Toby was _not_ keeping his side of the bargain.

“I haven’t had lunch yet,” Molly said, reaching up to give him another quick peck. “Do you want any? I was just going to make a bacon sandwich, or something easy.”

If Sherlock had started to have any tiny inkling that morning that Toby wasn’t as clever as he’d thought him to be, the dog’s reaction to the word ‘bacon’ disproved that notion completely; he could actually hear Toby salivating and smacking his jaws together in anticipation. Molly knew that he was often ravenously hungry when he finished a case, but Sherlock knew he couldn’t plausibly claim the noises had come from _him_. The jig was entirely up.

“Sherlock, what-?”

Molly was eyeing him with a mixture of curiosity and concern - and then, finally, she clocked the leash he had been trying to conceal in his coat sleeve. She pulled her lips together, her eyebrows now set into a straight line as she cautiously stepped down onto the path, peered around the corner - and came face to face with Toby.

“O...kayyy,” she said slowly, her intonation ending with a slight upswing. “I didn’t realise you were bringing a friend.”

“Ah," he replied, quickly trying to gauge her reaction. “I was just coming to that. After the kissing thing - seemed a shame to forgo that.”

By this time, Toby was back on all fours and sniffing around Molly’s legs, tail wagging madly as she  patted his back - although his rather insistent behaviour didn't give her much choice. Molly glanced up at Sherlock, with a bemused and questioning look.

"Can we come in?" he asked.

"Um, I think you already did," Molly replied, indicating to the fact that Toby had muscled his way past her, excitedly, and was on his way to dragging Sherlock with him.

"Give me a second," Molly said, as she closed the door behind them. "Just going to find out if Toby's around. Not sure whether he's come back in yet, but if he has, I'd better shut him in a room."

At the sound of 'his' name, the bloodhound did an about-turn and looked up at Molly, expectantly, as though waiting for an instruction. She glanced at Sherlock, the bemusement returning.

"Oh yes, probably should have mentioned it," Sherlock said. "He's a Toby as well."

Molly gave him a slightly disbelieving look, before turning to go in search of her feline lodger. But the second she opened the living room door, said lodger sauntered through the doorway; the cat moved to rub against Molly's ankles, but - with an amusing double-take - instead shot like greased lightning towards the sanctuary of the bedroom.

"Sorry," Sherlock muttered.

Molly looked at him as though to say _no, you're not_ , before leading them both through into the kitchen. Sherlock toed his way out of his shoes on the way, momentarily wondering about where Toby’s paws might have been - and in _what_ they might have been - in the last few hours.

"So, who does Toby - _this_ Toby - belong to?" Molly asked, crouching down to rub Toby's ears. This simple, freely-given indulgence made Sherlock's heart soar with a strange hope.

"Well, he's sort of _between_ owners," Sherlock replied, diplomatically.

"Is he the unexpected aftermath you mentioned?" Molly asked, eyebrow raised.

He nodded.

"I thought you were helping out your hacker friend?" she queried, almost losing her balance as Toby snuffled around her enthusiastically.

"Yes, that's right, Craig Gemmell," Sherlock confirmed. “This is his dog.”

It was _technically_ still true.

“So, did you manage to stop him being extradited?” Molly asked. “Craig, I mean; not the dog.”

“Yes!” Sherlock replied, brightly. “In fact, I was able to secure Craig a very lucrative job offer. But it was the sort of job offer that you really can’t refuse - well, certainly when it’s being offered to you by the Department of Homeland Security, and the alternative is ninety-nine years in a federal prison.”

He saw Molly make a sympathetic grimace, as she got to her feet again. She shuffled around to the other side of the kitchen counter, reaching for the kettle.

“So, how long are you looking after Toby for, then?” she asked over her shoulder, as she filled the kettle from the sink.

Sherlock glanced down at Toby, who was sniffing around the base of the kitchen units, clearly thrilled to have a rich new tapestry of scents to explore.

“Well…,” Sherlock began. “I suppose that depends. Toby could be an excellent asset for my work - he’s a first-rate scent dog - a certified pedigree bloodhound - and easily as good as any police tracker-dog. He’s also friendly, clean of habit, and is of a generally noble and pleasing demeanour.”

There followed a moment of mild horror when Sherlock realised that the so-called ‘noble’ hound was now chewing his intended new mistress’ ballet pump. Hastily, Sherlock wrestled the slightly moist shoe from Toby’s mouth and swapped it for another dog treat.

Molly crossed back over to the counter closest to Sherlock, setting the two mugs down on the counter. She was smiling, an odd sort of knowing twinkle in her eye; Sherlock recognised it as the look that meant he had been rumbled.

"You want to keep him?" she asked.

"Yes. Well, maybe. Possibly. It crossed my mind," he said, firing wide of the casual tone he was aiming for. "What... what do you think?"

Molly's face softened into a smile.

“Sherlock,” she said, gently. “Are you asking my _permission_ to let you keep him?”

Sherlock felt a warmth rise in his cheeks. In typical Molly fashion, she knew his intentions even before he did.

“In a way...” he admitted, huffing out a short sigh. Any further elaboration on this seemed to be eluding him.

“Why?”

The word was softly spoken, and although Molly was smiling, her tone was genuine; she was not making fun of him. She actually wanted to know. Which meant that he needed to give her a proper answer. And as his brain formulated the words, it made complete sense of everything he’d been feeling since he left Craig’s flat that morning, made sense of those images that kept sparking into his mind; evenings on the sofa in Molly’s flat, Toby lying at their feet in front of the fire. It made sense - their lives were so tightly, wonderfully entwined now that nothing else would - but Sherlock felt as though his heart was in his mouth when he began.

“Because he wouldn’t just be mine...he’d be _ours_...” he said. “...Wouldn’t he?”

Sherlock saw Molly’s small, sharp intake of breath.

“It goes without saying that I would be Toby’s primary carer,” he continued, hurriedly; if he needed to do some convincing, this was his small window of opportunity. “Ensure he’s taken for regular walks, see after his welfare, cover all veterinary bills, pet insurance, etcetera.”

Molly was listening to him, her lips pulled together. She gave a thoughtful nod. Sherlock was wondering whether his heart (which, admittedly, often did strange things around Molly) was now permanently lodged in his mouth.

“Sherlock, I don’t...I don’t know what to say, it’s-”

Not wanting to contemplate the unthinkable, Sherlock nevertheless knew he had to ask…

“Don’t...don’t you like him, Molly?”

At this, Molly’s face broke into an expression that was both fond and slightly exasperated.

"No, it's not _that_ , Sherlock," she said, coming around to his side of the counter. "Toby seems lovely. It's just...up until ten minutes ago I had no idea I was in the market for a dog, and...it's a surprise, that's all, especially considering…"

She paused, and Sherlock could see there was something else. What had he missed? Was it something to do with that other dog, the one she had with Meat Dagger? He wouldn't be surprised; everything else about the fiancé had been second-rate. _Ex_ -fiancé - that distinction was important.

"Considering…?" he prompted.

Molly swallowed, brow furrowed as though trying to put order to her words.

"No, just, getting a dog - _having_ a dog - is quite a big thing," she continued. "I mean, where were you thinking Toby would live?"

It was Sherlock's turn to frown now. There could only be one possible answer - couldn’t there?

"Well, with _us_ ," he said. "He would have a basket at Baker Street, but my intention would be that he would consider that his place of work. Here... _this_ would be home...if that would be amenable?"

Sherlock suddenly had the horrible feeling, from Molly’s conflicted expression, that it might not be.

“It sounds nice, Sherlock,” she nodded. “It does. But this flat is pretty small, and Toby is - well, he’s pretty big. I mean, not that that’s his fault. And isn’t it going to be pretty confusing having two pets with the same name?”

Sherlock tried to think quickly; he was not going to let the ginger, armchair-hogging furball get in the way of his future plans.

“You could rename the cat,” he suggested. “It’s not as though they recognise their names anyway.”

At this, Molly gave him what looked like a warning glare, her hands going to her hips. Toby, Sherlock noticed, collapsed into a cowering position.

“Cats _do_ recognise their own names,” she retorted. “They just choose to ignore it a lot of the time, that’s all. Anyway, we are not _renaming_ Toby - apart from anything, he was here first.”

Well, there was Toby’s Kennel Club name, of course - but Quatermass Paradigm didn’t exactly trip lightly off the tongue, particularly when yelled across a public park.

“We’re both highly intelligent people,” Sherlock offered. “We’ll think of something.”

Molly let out a breath she seemed to have been holding, and Sherlock watched as she approached Toby again, saying his name quietly and beckoning him towards her. Apparently, his obedience to Molly did not have to be bought with meaty snacks. She smiled as she patted Toby’s side, before looking up at Sherlock.

“You really like him, don’t you?”

It was simply, honestly asked, and required only a simple, honest answer.

“Yes,” Sherlock nodded.

She straightened up a little, and Toby nudged his head up against Molly’s hip, contentedly, his wagging tail thumping against the kitchen unit.

“There is something else,” Molly said, tucking behind her ear a strand of hair that had escaped from her bun. “Do we know how he is around children?”

Sherlock considered this for a moment, taking in the soppy, wide-eyed beast staring up at Molly, practically begging to be adored.

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “But we can introduce him to Rosie gradually, and I’m certain she’ll love him. You know what she’s like - no animal escapes her attentions.”

Molly nodded slowly, one hand still gently scratching the top of Toby’s head. She looked up at Sherlock, and it seemed to him as though she was trying to suppress a smile.

“I wasn’t-” she began, before cutting herself off.

She took a step towards Sherlock, closing the distance between them, and he felt Molly's fingertips reach out and graze his. Instinctively, he folded his hand around hers.

“It wasn’t actually Rosie I was thinking about, Sherlock…” she said.

"Oh," he replied, hoping Molly wouldn't realise that his outward show of comprehension was in fact bluff. "Okay…"

Molly squeezed his fingers gently, meaningfully.

"Because as of about the middle of October, it won't just be Rosie we have to consider…"

Sherlock automatically opened his mouth to question what was happening in October, but was stopped short by Molly’s expression - the gleam in her eyes, the smile that was threatening to burst onto her face.

“No?” he ventured, his cautious tone at odds with the acrobatics being performed by his stomach.

“No,” Molly confirmed, quietly, now beaming.

Sherlock took a breath. He couldn’t help his eyes from travelling over her body, as though searching for signs of supporting evidence.

“So you’re...that is to say, we are…?”

Molly gave a happy, vigorous nod.

“Yes. I am. We are.”

He blinked, suddenly feeling a rush of euphoria that left him feeling lightheaded. _Should he sit down? It would be ridiculous to sit down. Perhaps they should both sit down?_ But when he felt Molly’s hand clasp his again, Sherlock followed his instinct, and instead, he swooped in and kissed her. She gave a little chuckle against his lips, the fingers of her free hand grabbing onto his coat lapel to steady herself. So often Sherlock had forgotten everything - forgotten even himself - in Molly’s kisses, in kissing Molly, but now his mind was racing.

“H-how long have you known?” he managed, once they broke apart.

“Not long,” Molly smiled, leaning back slightly to look up at him. “I was hoping to tell you yesterday, but then I thought it might be better when your head wasn’t buried in a case. Of course, I had no idea at that point that someone _else_ was about come and live with us.”

She nodded past Sherlock’s elbow.

“It doesn’t change anything, Molly,” he said quickly. “I mean, obviously, it - _this_ ” - he gestured vaguely in the vicinity of her abdomen- “changes everything - wonderfully, fantastically so. But what I mean is that Toby won’t change any of that, get in the way of any of it. He will fit right in, I promise you - you’ll barely know he’s here, and when you do, only in a good way. He’s very docile, completely house-trained, highly disciplined-”

“Um, Sherlock?”

“Hm?”

Molly’s eyes were narrowed, her lips pursed.

“Did you pick up any dog food on the way? Because I’m pretty sure Toby’s found the Twix I left in my bag.”

When Sherlock whirled around, it was to be confronted by the sight of Molly’s striped duffel bag, with a one-hundred-pound dog sticking out of one end of it. Toby’s tail thudded against the kitchen floor, as a muffled sound of satisfied slavering emanated from the bag. In Toby’s complete absence of shame, Sherlock had no choice but to feel it, endure it, on both of their behalfs.

"No, Toby! Put that down!" Sherlock said, making a lunge for the bag, which Toby was clearly reluctant to relinquish. "Put. It. Down!"

When he dared to turn around to face Molly again, she was stifling a smile.

“It’s fine,” Sherlock said, with a firm nod. “There’s still plenty of time to deal with any 'settling in' issues. We’ve got, what, eight months?”

He quickly deposited the mauled, soggy remains of the chocolate wrapper in the pedal bin, and fired Toby another disappointed look over his shoulder.

“More like seven-and-a-half,” Molly replied, wrinkling her nose. “And we might need some of that to prepare for the baby, too, though. Just a thought.”

“Like I said, Molly,” Sherlock murmured, wrapping his arms loosely around her waist and drawing her to him. “We’re highly intelligent people. There’s absolutely nothing to worry about.”

 

00000000000

 

_Nine-and-a-half months later…_

 

“What is it?” Sherlock asked in a low, whispered drawl.

He had been alerted by the familiar, insistent panting sound, interspersed with a faint whine, and opened his eyes just wide enough to see Toby standing to attention by the sofa in front of him. The dog had a hopeful look on his face.

“Not going for a walk,” Sherlock told him, clamping down on a yawn. “Did that already. Can’t be supper time either.”

Toby seemed to cock his head to one side in response.

In his current position, Sherlock stood exactly no chance of looking at his watch, so instead he squinted at the clock on the living room mantelpiece.

“Okay, so yes, it possibly _is_ supper time,” he conceded. “But I’m not currently in a position to do anything about that.”

At this particular moment, moving or making any noise above a whisper was undesirable for several reasons. One was his own mind-addling, muscle-draining fatigue, which meant that he probably couldn't even roll off the sofa if he tried; another reason was the primary cause of that fatigue - one William Hooper-Holmes, who was currently sprawled and snoring against Sherlock's chest. Sherlock had evaded complex alarm systems that were less sensitive than his sleeping son, and even Toby knew that disturbing the eight-week-old, newly-appointed Master of the House was a Very Bad Idea.

On the other side of Sherlock, her body curled around his, was Molly, and he had no wish to disturb her either. She had been through so much for all of them, and needed every moment of rest she could get; if _he_ was tired, Sherlock reasoned, it must be nothing to how Molly felt.

Toby hadn’t moved, and was now looking at him mournfully.

“I know; I’m hungry too,” Sherlock whispered, apologetically, as he carefully repositioned the hand that was supporting William’s small (but frequently deadly) rear end. “But we are where we are.”

Toby finally seemed to accept his fate, and slowly turned and lumbered out of the living room. The dog had put on at least ten pounds in the past year, so it wasn’t as though he was going to waste away any time soon.

It turned out that seven-and-a-half-months was actually quite an ambitious timescale for both preparing for the arrival of a baby, _and_ preparing a dog for the arrival of said baby. But they had got there - more or less. Even the cat (generally addressed these days as Tobes or Tobias, depending on the speaker) seemed to have recovered from the double trauma and inconvenience of having to make space for both a canine and a small, noisy human.

William gave a shuddering sigh in his sleep, and Sherlock glanced down at him; his wisps of hazel-coloured hair, his tiny bow-like mouth, the fingers curled into a little fist against Sherlock's chest. Clearly, he was already the most brilliant baby to ever have been born (Sherlock would grant Rosie a close second, but there was a chance, of course, that their goddaughter could inherit John's taste in clothes).

Now, it seemed inconceivable (no pun intended) that he had once imagined a future without William in it. The life he had pictured, upon taking ownership of Toby, would have made him immensely happy (he _had_ been immensely happy), but it turned out that he simply hadn't been thinking big enough - or perhaps brave enough. William hadn't so much slotted into that picture, but had instead gloriously thrown over the canvas and made them start again.

It was a strange thing, but it felt to Sherlock that he somehow loved Molly in a different way now - in more ways, perhaps - than he had before. He hadn’t really ever considered that, as well as growing, love could evolve and change; he was, after all, still very new to all this.

He heard the door creak open a little further, and Toby ambled back into the room. Right away, Sherlock could make out that he was carrying something in his mouth. Unlike the cat, who specialised in the dead or nearly-dead, at least Toby's gifts were inanimate. The dog made a beeline for the sofa and let the object drop from between his jowls.

"Ah, I see you've been following your hunting instincts," Sherlock whispered. "Well, if you consider stealing from my coat pocket as hunting."

An open packet of dog treats lay on the carpet between them. To Sherlock's slight shame, bribery still played a significant part in his relationship with Toby. He fleetingly wondered where, and in what condition, Toby had left his Belstaff - particularly if it was vulnerable to the cat making his bed in it again (the hairball in his left sleeve had been highly unwelcome).

"Go on - you might as well," Sherlock sighed.

There was a pause while Toby stared at him. Ordinarily - according to the pack dynamic that Sherlock had attempted to introduce - Toby didn't eat until the humans of the house had at least started theirs.

"No, thank you, Toby," Sherlock told him. He was hungry, certainly, but not ready to debase himself to the extent of eating dog jerky.

The dog turned his gaze to William, and then back to Sherlock.

"It's kind of you, but William isn’t currently equipped to tackle dehydrated meat products," he said. "Plus, your mistress would likely disapprove, and then we'll both be sleeping in the laundry room."

Although, from what he and Molly had experienced with Rosie, small children were not averse to sampling pet food, when it was conveniently available. Whoever invented baby-led weaning probably didn’t have Whiskas and Bonio in mind.

Sherlock gestured with his head for Toby to dig in, and the dog soon carried his bounty off to his favourite spot on the rug in front of the fireplace. He stretched out in that contented way of his, chomping happily while mesmerised by the flames.

Sherlock closed his eyes again - not to rest this time, but to visit his Mind Palace (now with whole new wings and annexes that he’d never imagined he would need). He should capture this memory, this feeling. Soon - as he retreated more deeply - all he was faintly aware of was the slight wheeze of William’s breathing, the rise and fall of Molly’s chest against his side, and the background noise of Toby’s snack consumption.

Then suddenly, joltingly, he was back in the room - and frantically trying to clear his mouth as quietly and motionlessly as possible.

“ _Bloody-_ ” Sherlock hissed, craning his neck for a view of his assailant, while at the same time trying not to gag.

He didn’t have to look far, as the cat sashayed nonchalantly along the back of the sofa - swishing the very tail (and posterior) that had very recently been in direct contact with Sherlock’s mouth - before dropping down to settle on Molly’s hip. Pointedly just out of Sherlock’s reach, he noticed. Molly hummed, and, eyes still closed, moved her hand from Sherlock’s chest to idly caress Tobias’ head.

It was, Sherlock acknowledged, his semi-regular reminder that before him, and long before William, someone else already had claim on Molly’s affections. But while the cat’s methods and general manner left something to be desired, Sherlock knew there was a lesson to be heeded there, on top of the fact that he should never again try to picture the future - and that was to never take this, any of this, for granted.

That, and possibly to nail shut the catflap.

 

THE END


End file.
